


Terminator: Wilderpeople

by Tyellas



Category: Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bittersweet, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Explosions, Gen, Humor, Story within a Story, a little AU because Grace Lives, so what ABOUT those other Terminator coordinates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21997609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: So...what about the other Terminators Sarah hunted from Carl's coordinates? When Dani asks, Sarah tells the story of the last Terminator she took out before Mexico City. In a place with bad weather, a terrible landscape, and a kid to remind Sarah of her son in all the wrong ways. As Sarah puts it: "A fuck of a job. New Zealand."
Comments: 16
Kudos: 25





	Terminator: Wilderpeople

**Author's Note:**

> In Taika Waititi's film, _Hunt for the Wilderpeople_ , there’s a hilarious shout-out to Terminator - see [the moment's screencaps here.](https://thebyrchentwigges.tumblr.com/post/188911956120/britishcomedyoverflowing-hunt-for-the) Between this and the untold part of Sarah's story, have a very special Terminator hunt!

Inside the United States, Sarah Connor was always a fugitive, always wary. Despite that, she was having a tolerable moment on the road.

In a cool, dim roadhouse, along what used to be Route 66, Sarah was picking at a quesadilla. She wasn’t in any hurry to head back out into the New Mexico afternoon. The temperature was pushing a hundred degrees.

Her companions were happy to linger. Dani was peering at the roadhouse’s Americana. Grace was next to Dani, shoulder to shoulder, their thighs pressed together under the table. Love wasn’t stopping Grace from stealing Dani’s fries. Sarah, sipping a Jack and Coke, was idly amused, waiting for Dani to stop her. But Dani was distracted.

On the wall above their table, between fake-old tin signs and posters, there was a world map. Dani examined it for a full minute, eyes wide. Finally, Dani said, “Sarah, you told us you got messages from Carl about Terminators in other places.”

Sarah was glad she had a drink in hand. “Mmmh.”

“That there were some before the Terminator who came for me.”

“Mmmh.”

“Where was the one that was furthest away?”

“The last one before yours. It was a fuck of a job. New Zealand.”

Grace exploded. “That can't be true. New Zealand isn’t real!”

Dani and Sarah stared at her. Sarah said, patiently, for her, “It is there. I’ve been there. I probably still have mud in my ears from what happened there.”

“New Zealand is a place. They made all the movies! _Lord of the Rings,_ with the hobbits, and Narnia, and...” Dani trailed off.

Grace said, “Those are fairy tales, too. New Zealand’s just a saying. For somewhere or something too good to be true. Like a place that didn’t get destroyed by Judgement Day. This island that was still green, had plenty of food, no Terminators? Unbelievable.”

Sarah rolled her drink in her hand. “Maybe that’s why I was sent there, then. To kill a Terminator and keep it that way.”

Dani said, “You will tell us about it, yes?”

“I will. But I need a double.” Sarah caught the waitress’ eye, raised her glass.

“You always say that!”

“I’m not lying. You’ll get your story when I get my drink.”

* * *

It had begun, like it always did, with the coordinates.

Sarah received them in a humid, dingy motel room outside San Salvador. When her phone pinged, she got an instant hit of adrenaline. She took a moment to savor it, to clear her head. As soon as she read the message, it would be on again: the hunt for another Terminator.

This time, the message read:

38.7547° S, 177.1593° E FOR JOHN

At first, Sarah thought she was going to Argentina. Then, she checked the exact location. That was easy to do in 2016. When the map came up, Sarah glared at her phone. “Nope. Nuh-uh. New Zealand? No fucking way. I am not made of money.”

Talking to herself was one thing. Replying to the message was another. Usually, Sarah sent one word back to the mystery messager, let them know she was on it. If she felt talkative, she'd send two words. Not this time. She was going to let this one slide. Sarah turned her phone off, stalked out to get a bottle of liquor.

When she came around the next day, it seemed like nothing had changed. Nobody had disturbed her. Nothing mattered. Not a Terminator on the other side of the world. Not her, and what she tried to do. She turned the phone back on, expecting to confirm that.

There was a second message, the same coordinates.

Sarah sat there and squinted at it for a while. After a minute, she chucked the phone on the bed, had a tepid shower.

When she came out, a third message was waiting. The same, again.

Sarah glared at it in between getting dressed, combing her hair, flossing.

“Goddamn it,” she said. She picked up the phone and replied: FINE.

It took Sarah ten minutes to pack. Five minutes later, she was on her way to San Salvador’s airport. Four hours later, she was close to broke and going to Argentina anyway, to get to New Zealand without a flight through the U.S. of A.

Worst of all, she couldn’t bring any weapons or ammunition. It turned out New Zealand allowed a traveler to maybe, possibly bring a few hunting rifles. If you got the permits weeks in advance. It was no good bribing weapons onto her flight out of San Salvador to have them confisticated on arrival. Sarah locked her arsenal in her latest Land Rover. She hoped she’d survive to retrieve it, or to be mad about it being stolen when she got back. That left her traveling light: clothes and kit to pass as a sporty traveler, energy bars, a bulletproof vest.

Waiting to board her first flight, Sarah’s phone pinged again. A fourth round of coordinates. They had changed, very slightly. It looked like the Terminator had landed before she had. Sarah gave in, for once, to texting her spleen.

FUCK YOU – I’M GOING – ETA 30 HRS – WHOEVER YOU ARE YOU OWE ME

She let the satisfaction of having the last word carry her onto her first flight.

Six hours later, on her flight to Auckland, that had waned. Squeezed between two rugby players, Sarah brooded. This was the furthest she’d gone, chasing a Terminator, with the least weaponry. As in, none. She knew how a Terminator would attack without weapons of its own. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would get the Terminator’s job done. Her job was to fight back. To destroy. To Terminate, herself. She needed to plan for this worst-case scenario. Sarah scoured the airline magazine for anything that might help. The only possibility it offered was tipping a Terminator into a wine press. How much could she do to a Terminator with as little as possible? That kept her awake long after the rugby players were snoring.

Landing in Auckland confirmed Sarah’s worst fears. Leaving the plane, they passed through a carved wooden archway, to recordings of chirping birdsong. No guards were armed. The only bulletproof vest was in Sarah’s backpack. Nobody was bribing anybody. Customs’ anti-contraband team was goddamn beagle puppies. It was as safe and sane and cheerful as the airline’s propaganda promised.

A Terminator would have a field day, here.

After Customs, Sarah’s phone came back to life. Unusually, her tormentor had sent more coordinates, very slightly updated. Sarah plugged those into a map, then went to rent a car with GPS. She refrained from eye contact at the rental counter until the man handing over the keys asked, “Where are you going?” Sarah named the closest point on the map, Makutehaku. That got her a smile. “Up in Te Urewera. That’s some country, eh? Going hunting?”

Sarah stood up straighter. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

That was the only encouraging moment. An hour later, Sarah’s hunting-inspired attempts to buy firearms had come to nothing. She settled for plan B, two machetes. In hunting country, she’d keep her eyes open for what she could steal. The harder things got, the more Sarah shed ethics.

Chasing coordinates, Sarah drove for five hours through steady rain. After narrow highways, wide pastures, gullies and gorges, all of it deeply verdant, Sarah’s rented 4 x 4 began to climb. The road stopped being two lanes. Then, it stopped being paved. Her phone cut in and out. It was her, the vehicle’s GPS, and the last set of coordinates.

By late afternoon, Sarah had arrived. Paving had returned with some signs for visitor’s parking, a scenic view. There was one other 4 x 4, muddied and battered. Sarah got out, and stood appalled.

This was why the Terminator was going so slowly. These near-vertical green mountains, thick with cold jungle. These plunging ravines, lashed by curtains of rain. To Sarah, it was like the crumpled heart of Central America, the Sierra Madre, but deeper, more impossible. Denial rose in her again.

Until she heard the gunshots.

There were four of them, in quick succession. Rifle shots – punchier than a .22, far from a war weapon. They sent Sarah to the railing between the parking lot and the plunge into the green. She couldn’t see any action. But there was more to hear.

Out there, echoing against the ravines, rang a man’s voice, one word. Long, mournful, heavily accented. Saying just what Sarah would say, under fire in that jungle: _Faaaaaaaaaaack._

There was a final, echoing shot. Afterwards, only the slight sounds of the trees and the rain, unbroken.

Sarah let herself curse for thirty seconds. Then she slid the machetes onto her belt, climbed over the barrier, and got on with it.

There was a trail immediately. Sarah only needed to not be blind to follow two steps of footprints, one in hiking boots, one of bare feet. They were both sizeable. Which one was Sarah’s prey? She jogged to find out.

The fern-shadowed jungle answered that a klick in. On the trail, Sarah found a husky man reduced to a stripped corpse, limbs broken, still warm. That meant Sarah was up against a T-800. Other Terminators didn’t need clothes. If the T-800 had done this and kept going, its quarry was still out there. Another hunter, probably. The kind of person who’d come out here for fun would be the type to help save a future, or have a son who would.

Sarah turned up the trail, took a deep breath. This was why she trained relentlessly. She’d known in her bones, her nightmares, that a Terminator would make her run again. She’d never expected it would be like this. But she was ready. She took off.

And it wasn’t the worst thing, sprinting through this forest, almost unburdened. Pure air filled her lungs. The cold receded to a fresh chill. Sarah shifted her stride to bounce off springy roots crossing the path. Here and there, a heavy footprint or a broken branch urged her on. The path got tighter, veering up. She was starting to feel winded when she heard a second human voice ahead. Up the trail, she glimpsed something red.

Sarah had her plan. But the forest offered something more. She paused beside a stand of tall, spear-thin saplings, each topped with a mop of leaves. Sarah swished one down with the machete, picked up its three-meter length, and ran for the red.

Shortly, Sarah saw what the red was – not blood, but a red-and-black checked shirt, straining over familiar shoulders. She didn’t need to see the face to know this was a Terminator. The askew sideways hat, the slowness, the silhouette all told her.

In front, someone Sarah couldn’t see was doing the shouting. “Hey fulla. Fulla. I’m not a pig, fulla, you can put that gun down. Don’t bloody shoot!” A voice that cracked Sarah more, someone on the edge between a boy and a young man.

Sarah didn’t wait. She closed the gap and used the leafy end of the spear to whisk the hat away. He – it – turned. His face was all Sarah needed. With a howl, she lashed the sapling at that hated visage. When he had half-angled to her, Sarah whipped the sapling around and tried stabbing its chest.

That failed, but it left off shooting the kid. When it grabbed the sapling and pulled her in, Sarah let it, unsheathing a machete. Her right arm whirled at the Terminator’s exposed skin, its hands and face. She knew she couldn’t kill it this way. Her goal was to fuck it up. Damage its hands, peel flesh from its metal bones, show the world what it was. Whatever it did next, it wouldn’t infiltrate.

“Aaaaah! Aaaaah! Aaaaaah!” That wasn’t the painless Terminator, it was the boy. But the cries got the Terminator’s attention, even as a lucky strike stripped the Terminator’s left brow and cheek to the steel.

Sarah yelled, “Run for your life! This fucker wants to kill you!”

Did the kid run? No. This was amateur hour. He did the opposite and dashed down to the fight, right as Sarah let go the sapling. They almost collided on the path.

Sarah found herself facing a chunky, good-looking boy, tanned in this cold weather, dark hair a mess, black eyes wide. “Who are you? You’re – you’re crazy! Aaaah!” He stared beyond Sarah. The Terminator was reaching for him.

“Aaaaah! Bloody perv!” He ducked to the side. Sarah stabbed the machete she held into the Terminator’s midriff and followed, dodging metal and blood. Her dart took her right into the kid, who kept yelling “Aaaaah!” as they both tumbled over and _down._

Entwined, they rolled, bouncing down a slope the trees had concealed. The sturdy kid flattened saplings and cushioned their shared landing in a freezing stream. When he tried to get up, Sarah barred his throat with her arm. “Shhh. Don’t. Move.” The least splash would betray them immediately.

To Sarah’s surprise, the kid listened. More, the turn of his eyes showed he, too, was waiting to hear what was on the pathway. They heard one heavy, rustling stomp, then a second. It was interrupted by loud flapping, weird cries: some kind of bird. _Quaaa! Kaaaa! Quordle ordle ordle oooooooh! Kaaaaa!_

The kid’s face opened in a naughty grin. “Magpies,” he whispered. “That fulla looks like dog tucker now and they want a bite. We’ve got a minute. You didn’t break your ankle, did you?”

Sarah hissed back, “No. You?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“We have to run,” said Sarah. It was getting dark. A problem for them – but not for the T-800, which saw in infrared. Their first priority was away.

The kid pouted. “Can’t we fast walk?”

Sarah bared her teeth. “We RUN.”

“I can run. I’m a good runner! This winter I was on the run for weeks up here. The cops were chasing me and – ” A squawk from above cut him off. Sarah guessed the Terminator had crushed a magpie.

Sarah got off him, careful not to splash. “We shut up and run.”

“Like _Lord of the Rings_ ,” the kid whispered. He got up, too, then pointed over his shoulder, up the stream gully. Sarah let him take the lead.

Again, he knew what he was doing. They made their way up the gully until something tangled and woody grew down it. Silently, the kid gestured up, and began to clamber. Sarah picked her own set of woody vines and went. This forest was a kind of hell, but it was a dead zone for phones, and the thick plants ruined a line of sight. They might find some safety. Finally, they got somewhere like flat ground.

The kid hunkered down on a log, huffing. “I’m Ricky. Ricky Baker. Who’re you?”

“Call me Sarah.”

“You’re ‘Merican?” Ricky sounded disappointed.

Sarah was used to this. “It’s complicated.”

Ricky frowned at her. “Why did you stop…the man? Thing? It knew my name, but…I got a bad vibe.”

Sarah stamped. “It knew you? Fuck. Then you’re the one, this time. And I haven’t stopped it yet. All I did was slow it down. You saw how I didn’t stop it? How its face was metal under the skin? That is not a man. That’s a death robot from the future. It’s trying to terminate you so you don’t stop _its_ future. That thing will chase you until I find a way to destroy it.”

Ricky was gaping now. “You say I’m gonna stop its future?”

Sarah hadn’t tried to explain this for decades. She didn’t know what to say about Judgement Day to a red-cheeked kid out here where Middle Earth met Jurassic Park. “You’ll grow up to be something that gets in its way. Stops it from robot world domination.”

Ricky blinked. “For real?”

“I know it sounds crazy. But yes, it is real. I’ve had those robots after me. I know.”

Ricky breathed, “Gangster!” He got up and struck a pose, holding out one hand.

“ _Future is awesome_

_Me, Te Kooti Tupac_

_Gangster rapper chief_

That’s a haiku, a poem. About what I’ll be in the future.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Does your mom know you’re out here?”

That hit a sullen nerve. Ricky hunched into himself. “My mum doesn’t want to know.”

Kids, the same everywhere. Sarah said, automatically, “Don't be dumb. ‘Course she does.”

Ricky glared. “Mums suck! They’re not there when you need them.”

 _John,_ Sarah thought. She’d sat at a table for ten seconds too long. That had been enough to not be there for her son.

Ricky was going on. “Aunties are way better. An auntie chooses you. Looks after you.”

Sarah said nothing.

“My Auntie Bella is staunch,” Ricky said.

“Mmmh.”

“Way more staunch than you,” added Ricky. “I’ve seen Bella with twice as much blood on her face as you’ve got. She can carry a pig under each arm. Skin and gut it in ten minutes, too.”

“I’m happy for her,” Sarah muttered.

“She knows to wear real boots out here.”

“I was in a hurry.” Sarah gritted her teeth. “I may not be your sainted aunt but I need to stop that thing. Where can I get some guns? Weapons? Is there a hunting lodge, a military base?”

Ricky turned away, still hunching. “I know a fulla. He’s got stuff for sure. ‘Sides, he’ll believe us…Come on.” 

Sarah managed the hour’s hike that followed. Ricky peered back, waiting for her to complain. She didn’t. The terrain stayed flat, went scruffy and open. Sarah was glad when they returned to cover, trees around a small river. Full darkness had come down by the time Ricky stopped them. He stood under a tree and mimicked a bird’s call.

“Who are we here to meet?” Sarah said. This had already gone on far too long. She’d whittled taking out a Terminator down to the essentials: get in, destroy, get out. The less she interacted with people along the way, the better.

Ricky chuckled. “Some call him… Psycho Sam.” Ricky gave up on his signal. “SAAAAAM!”

A blade of light split the shadows under the trees. The door on a blacked-out refuge had been opened, silhouetting a shambling human. “Ricky! What are you doing back here, mate?”

Ricky said, “Hec sent me a card for Auntie Bella. He wrote it himself and everything. I took it to her. I was gonna stop on the way home and fish up some eels. Kahu likes them. Then everything went spare. A hunter tried to shoot me but he wasn’t a hunter. He’s a future death robot like in a spacies, but real.”

Sam’s face peered out the door. If you went to Central Casting in Los Angeles and told them, _give me Psycho Sam,_ this bearded weirdo was who you’d get. “Aw, mate, that’s rough. I’m sorry the Man came for you again.”

“I’ve got someone with me. Not Hec. This crazy ‘Merican wants kill the robot so I can be gangster like Te Kooti. She’s Sarah.”

Sarah had eased up to the open door. Sam, hearing Sarah’s name, turned to her as the light fell on her face. His eyes bugged out. “You’re not…Sarah Connor, are you?”

Shit. Fuck. Busted, in the middle of nowhere. Sarah lifted her chin, one hand on the machete she still had. “What’s it to you?”

Sam’s face split in an enormous grin. He pressed a weathered hand over his heart. “I’m, well. I’m your biggest fan.”

Sarah stepped back. _“What?_ _”_

Sam turned to Ricky. “This is amazing. She’s a criminal and she’s famous!”

Ricky perked up. “Like Uncle Hec?”

“Famouser. Come inside and see!”

Sam’s refuge was a falling-down trailer. Inside, they squeezed past teetering stacks of conspiracy-theory books, squeaking electronics. Sam gestured at a spot above his top bunk. The wall was pinned with faded, yellowing clippings. Sarah recognized her own face, articles about her attack on Cyberdyne. One clipping was brighter, a magazine cover with Sarah’s younger face in a Photoshopped montage: _25 th Anniversary of Cyberdyne: Have We Learned Nothing? _

Sarah snarled, “What is this?”

Sam said, “You’re my role model. My inspiration. I’m out here because society is a machine run by the Man. You stuck it to the Man, blowing up one of the companies making machines, computers, and went on the lam. They never caught you. You escaped the machine! I bet you’ve never filled out a form in your life! Now you’re here, in our country. In my hideout! Can I offer you a drink?”

“Yes. Definitely.” Whatever rotgut he had, at this point, Sarah would take it. “Let me brief you on the situation.”

Sam’s idea of a drink turned out to be a cup of tea. Cold, wet, and stuck, Sarah gave in. She sculled it while she explained more about Terminators. Sam accepted everything Sarah said immediately. “Time traveling death robots? I knew it. They’ve got to be the secret behind the national rugby team. Look!”

Sarah glanced at the postcard Sam held out to her. “You’ve…got a point, there. They look like Terminators. T-800 models, the lot of them.”

Sam clapped the postcard against his chest and sighed. “If only I’d finished my bunker, you could hide Ricky there. It was going to be the best bunker, too, deep and long and – I ordered the mining explosives and never got around to it.”

“Mining explosives,” Sarah breathed. “Have you got detonators?”

Sam hung his head. “I’ve got the lot. I know, no excuses. I should’ve done it last week.”

Sarah turned to Ricky. “Want to learn to make bombs? If we plan this, we can blow that Terminator to kingdom come.”

“Choice!” said Ricky.

After ten shouty minutes of strategy, they settled down to work. Sam sliced hunks of mining explosive out of their shrink-wrapping. Ricky kneaded them into loaves. That was safe, because Sarah did the risky part, setting up detonators and fuses, rewrapping each loaf. While they worked, Sam lit some kerosene lanterns. The junky trailer filled with golden light and a chemical smell. That was good, because there were a lot of other smells going on. Sam also made more tea. In a crazed paramilitary way, it was cozy.

Ricky seemed to think so, too. While he pummelled the gray putty, he said to Sarah, “I told you about my Auntie Bella…”

Sarah snipped a detonator. “You did. I got the point. I’m weakass compared to her.”

Ricky sniffed. “Auntie Bella is dead.”

He went on. “I took Hec’s card up to where we put her ashes. But you can’t go up there. That Terminator fulla, he better not go there…If he goes to where I live now, it’s really bad, right?

Sarah said, “It’s the worst. He’ll hurt your family.”

Ricky swallowed. “I was in foster care and Bella took me but Bella died and they were going to take me to juvie. So me and Uncle Hec shoved it to the Man. We were hiding out up here. That didn’t end so well. Now, Hec has to be in prison for a while and I was in juvie after all. But I got fostered out here again to this super cool fam, they make the best sausages, they’re my whanau now. They say Uncle Hec can come back and help out on their farm, even.”

“Nice for him.”

When she left it at that, Ricky said, “Sarah? When you were trying to kill it, the Terminator after us, it wasn’t like fights in the movies. It was gross.”

“That’s just how it is. Better it than you.”

“Why’d you do all that stuff? Get on a plane and try and stop a bad spacies ‘bot.” Ricky nudged his pile of explosive putty. “You don’t even know me.”

“One of those metal motherfuckers killed my son.”

Ricky gasped. “That’s why you look sad a lot.”

Sarah smacked down her pliers. “I am not _sad._ ”

“That’s right! You're tragic!” Sam said.

“I’m not _tragic_ either. I tried to change the world’s fate and I did. Then I paid the price. I fucking keep going because there is nothing else for me to do. You have a family,” Sarah pointed at Ricky. “You have friends,” She pointed at Sam. “And this shit – this gross and killing shit – is what I’ve got left. So I do it.”

Sarah realized she’d stood up. She sat down again, picked up the pliers. “Now I’m going to get back to it so you can keep what you’ve got.”

Sam said, to Ricky, “This is why she’s my inspiration!” That slid off Sarah.

Ricky chewed his lip, between sullen and thoughtful: a look that summed up almost-fourteen. That hit home. Sarah snapped off her bulletproof vest. “Sam, get me some straps or webbing. Ricky, get over here. We’re going to resize this for you.”

“I don’t know,” Ricky said, doubtful. “There’s a _lot_ more of me.”

“Better than nothing. Come on.”

After they finished and packed, they slept. Sarah jolted awake at dawn to a sound that chilled her: _quordle ordle ordle oooooooh._ The carrion-bird’s cry.

Instantly, Sarah rolled out of Sam’s top bunk, almost stomping on Sam, flailing awake on the floor. “He’s close. Let’s go!”

Sam said, “To think, Sarah Connor slept in my bunk…I’ll never wash those sheets again.”

“Pretty sure you’ve never washed them before,” Sarah muttered. She leaned into the lower bunk. “Ricky Baker! MOVE IT OUT!”

Like they’d planned, Sarah and Ricky grabbed canvas packs. Sam had two huge satchels. He tossed Sarah one hunter’s rifle, keeping his other one. Sarah inspected it: a lever-action .30-30. It weighed barely anything compared to Sarah’s usual ordnance. She still cradled it as they oozed out paranoid Sam’s back door. Sarah made Ricky walk last. “Make all the tracks you can.” Ricky was happy to stomp, leaving his trail.

The world was gray and green. Yesterday’s freezing rain had softened for thick mists, clouds brushing the earth. Sam led them down yet another trail, this one trailing down a gully. Right where its brush and scrub thickened to forest and tall trees, Sam stopped. “I thought about here?” Sarah approved.

They set up: laying explosives, camouflaging them with six-foot fronds from the giant ferns.

“My turn!” Sam said, proudly. He held up his arms, where he’d tied armfuls of branches, tight with small leaves. His back was turtle-shelled with more branches. “You’re about to see the full bushman effect. Man…bush! Bushman!”

With that, Sam flopped down next to the explosives’ detonators. He curled in on himself to become a human shrub. From his own camouflage, he flailed one arm, holding a lighter.

Ricky met Sarah’s eye and glanced upwards, shaking his head. Sarah had to grant, “It works. Now you, Ricky. Get in front and brace yourself. When you see the Terminator – ”

“I’ll know it’s him ‘cos you cut him up already,” Ricky said.

“ – that, too. Distract him. One of those poem things, or yell at him, something. Draw him down over the explosives, then keep him there a minute so Sam can do his thing. Stay in sight, right there. No running away. Or fast walking. Try and look like a threat. Can you do that?” Sarah stared Ricky in the eye.

Ricky, all angry truculence, stared back. “Just you watch. I got this.” He leaned down, dipped up some mud in each hand, and swiped it across his face, like war paint. He cast his eyes up the gully trail. "There's a lake at the end of this track. That's where Auntie Bella is."

The shrub at their feet said, cheerfully, “You’ve got our back if this turns to custard!”

Ricky translated. “He means you’re our backup.” His head jerked, turning up the trail. He heard what Sarah did: _quordle ordle ordle oooooooh skaaa kraaaa_ _–_

Sarah dove to the left, up the gully’s incline about ten feet. Ignoring dripping leaves, she took a position between a loose shrub and the roots of a vast tree. From here, she could see. If she had to attack, she had momentum. And a machete. And a .30 calibre rifle, and … a Terminator that remembered her as a threat. This had better work.

Ricky strode up the path. From the mists before him, a slow, powerful figure emerged. When a crow-sized bird swooped above it, it reached, crushed the bird with one hand, cast it aside.

Ricky crossed his arms. “Oi! You! Spacies ‘bot!”

Sarah could see it, now. Its shoulders were wider than Sam’s, its waist trimmer than Ricky’s. It had a familiar lantern jaw Sarah ached to punch. Its monotone voice said, “Ricky Baker.” They all heard it adjust the lever of its rifle.

“I don’t know if Sam’s right about the bloody rugby team or not. If he is, you’ll know this means trouble.” Ricky hunkered forwards, stance strong. He clashed his arms together and roared.

_Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!_

_Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!_

The gully caught Ricky’s voice, made it ring. Sarah only recognized this place’s old language from a few bits on her flight in. The Terminator didn’t even have that, a tactical mistake by its machine creators. It slowed, rifling its memory banks for words it couldn’t find. Ricky bravely feinted forwards before he began to walk backwards, tough and confident. The Terminator followed, keeping him in sight. It had to be low on ammo to hold back from firing. Sarah silently thanked the magpies.

Ricky went on, reciting, half a poem, half a fight.

_Tenei te tangata, puhuruhuru_

_Nana nei I tiki mai, whakawhitite ra!_

Sarah leaned forwards, intent, as Ricky passed Sam. When he did, Sam’s arm snaked out. He flicked his lighter over three fuses. When embers kindled, he scooted off to the right side of the gully, opposite Sarah. Sarah held her breath, pressing back into the tree.

_Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra! Hai!_

At this, with a final brutal exhale, Ricky stopped, right where he should. So did the Terminator, raising its rifle at last.

The explosion didn’t come. Sarah leaned out again. The embers were gone. Fuck. Backup time. Sarah lifted the six-shot rifle and betrayed herself. _Ka-pow._ She aimed up from the fuses – _ka-pow_ – where the detonators should be. _Ka-pow._ The Terminator was turning to her, one eye human yet inhuman, cold, the other an exposed camera, hunter-red. _Ka-pow._ They just needed one detonator to go off. _Ka-pow._ Only one. _Ka-pow._ That would make the –

**_BOOM_ **

The explosion's blowback flung the shrub against Sarah, pinning her and shielding her from a rain of debris. There was a second _boom_ , another hail, echoing up the gully. She wiped her face clean and rocked onto her feet. As she did, her feet sent a rumble up her bones. The ground was moving. Debris was falling, but from behind her. The blow had rattled the gully’s sides – like mining explosives did – and the gully wall behind her was sliding loose.

The only thing to do was to flatten herself against the tree. As she did, Sarah howled, “Fuck! Landslide! Incoming!” Then, she clung as a train’s worth of rocks, mud, and plants churned down the hill. Sarah’s tree swayed, cracking, then slid loose, too, thudding down to hammer the slipped chaos with its roots. Sarah slid down with it, wedged into it, whipped by other branches. A final wave of mud followed.

At last, there was silence, broken only by a bird. _Kaaaaaa._

Beyond the slump of debris, a shrub moved, revealing an arm. Sam quavered, “Ricky? You okay, mate? We might’ve overdone it…”

Ricky rolled out of more shrubs, scratched, muddy, and grinning. “No way. That was bloody awesome!”

Sarah dragged herself free of branches, spat mud, wiped mud off her face. “Did that get it?”

Ricky said, “He’s munted now! The explosives vaped him to a skeleton and then, the tree, bam! Right into him! So choice!”

Sam was taking a bushman’s moment, walking up the tree’s length. “It’s a totara. A totara has fallen, eh?”

“Auntie Bella,” Ricky said, softly.

Sarah had other business. The only piece of Terminator she could find in the debris was, as usual, its durable skull, still half-fleshed. She thrust it at Sam. “Finish wrecking this with another round of your explosives. Don’t let a chip survive.”

Sam took it, gave it a bounce in his hands. “Anything for Sarah Connor! Doesn’t he look like a half-back. Game over for you, eh, fella?”

That wasn’t the end of it. After leaving Sam, Sarah found herself chaperoned by a nearly-fourteen-year-old, because Ricky hiked with her. Along the way, he chattered. “When I get home I’ll have such a feed. Sossies and beans on toast. Breakfast and second breakfast. Like _Lord of the Rings_. I’ll catch some eels first but that won’t take long…Shhh. See that bird? It’s a huia. Well, it could be a huia…Hold up and I’ll get you some miro gum. It’s on that tree. It's good for your scrapes and stuff.”

As Ricky stepped off the path, he paused, watching the-bird-that-could-be-a-huia. Sarah saw him smile without thinking. When Ricky handed her some golden plant goo, she accepted it. It smelled medicinal. Sarah said, “You do okay out here.”

Ricky said, “Uncle Hec taught me. He knows about out here, but he’s kind of a crim, he killed a man once, and – ”

Sarah cut him off. “Great. Perfect. Learn everything he knows. Learn from Sam, too. He's crazy, but he's also right.”

Ricky paused. The rough path split here, with a barely-traversed way threading off south. “My home’s that way.” Ricky took one step and stopped. “You’re going for real? Psycho Sam would hide you.”

Sarah said, “I don’t stay anywhere.”

Ricky tilted his head. “Is that ‘cause you’d be dawn raided by Immigration?”

“Close enough.” Sarah didn’t ask Ricky if he planned on going to college, or thought about traveling to the States – things to put him in line to fill John’s footsteps. Ricky was as smart and tough as John had been, in his different way. Except he had family. Friends. A real home. Only a moderate criminal record. Sarah Connor was the last thing he needed. “You watch out, here. Be suspicious. Look after your folks. Get yourself a dog. Dogs are good at telling if someone’s a Terminator.”

“Dogs are awesome!” Ricky managed to give _awesome_ five extra syllables. After that, he paused. Shifted from foot to foot. “I’ve got another haiku. After what you did.

_Shit sure got real._

_Glad I'm_ _not Terminated._

 _Kia kaha, auntie._ _”_

Then, Ricky hustled, as embarrassed by what he’d said as Sarah was to hear it.

Sarah finished going back down the trail. The mangled corpse was still there. Good thing Ricky hadn’t come back to see it. At least the man hadn’t been killed by a Terminator amidst nuclear ashes. If Ricky did his gangster-rapper-chief whatever, nobody else would die that way here. With that, Sarah dragged back to the car. From the driver’s seat, one bar of reception on her phone, she texted one word: DONE. And drove her cold, wet, aching self back to the airport.

Sarah managed to get a seat on a flight to Chile that night. Somehow, she got upgraded to first class. On the plane, she was free, for a little while. No texts or Terminators for twelve hours. It was as close to a real break as she’d get until she died.

Her luxury seat let her see Auckland’s handful of lights below. She watched them until they vanished below long white clouds. As she did, she thought about Ricky and John, mothers and aunties, a lifetime of pain. Leaving hurt less than being this far from John’s grave. Than screwing up a kid’s fate again.

The stewards brought Sarah what she asked for, potato chips and iced vodka. The vodka was top shelf. Painless going down, almost cold enough to carry that forest’s clean chill to her bones. Sarah drank it until she passed out, in a classy way, for once.

The stewards seemed used to it.

* * *

“That was your last Terminator…before the one who came for me.” Slowly, brilliantly, Dani smiled. “I understand why you helped me and Grace so much, now.”

Sarah dodged that. “The point of that story is, be ready for anything.”

Grace had taken over Sarah’s plate. Finishing the last bite, she said, “What happened to the kid afterwards?”

Sarah shrugged. “No idea. I’m nobody’s social worker.”

Dani had been tapping at her phone. “Is this him?” Dani had found a video. They put their heads together to watch.

A chunky, good-looking boy was swaggering for the camera. “Kia kaha, this is Little Ricky comin’ at you from the Bay in Aotearoa.”

“Aotearoa!” Grace said. “You didn’t _say_ Aotearoa. That’s a real place.”

Sarah glared. “Don’t tell me that’s what they called it in your time.”

“In fact, we did. It wasn’t perfect like the saying but it was where the really rich bunkered types went – ” Grace blinked. Incredulously, she said, “You turned down a bunker in Aotearoa?”

Dani shushed them. On the video, Ricky was going on. “I didn’t choose the skuxx life – the skuxx life chose me. I’m gonna keep it skuxx for my mates and my whanau, too. Here’s a poem about it. _Meant to be Te Kooti! They try to terminate me! But I got to be free!_ _”_

Sarah didn’t know what her face said. Whatever it was, Dani and Grace both began to laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> A klick – A kilometre, a little more than half a mile.  
> Te Kooti – Pronounced Te Country, a famously rebellious Māori chieftain in the 19th century.  
> Spacies - NZ slang, arcade video games.  
> The haka [ Ka Mate ](http://folksong.org.nz/ka_mate/1chant.html) was created by a member of Ngāti Toa and popularized by the All Blacks rugby team. It's used here with respect for its badassery and no intention of any profit.  
> Whanau – Māori/te reo, family/extended family/tribe.  
> Dawn raided – A reference to immigration raids in Auckland in the 1980s.  
> Kia kaha – Māori/te reo, be strong.  
> Aotearoa – The most widely used Māori/te reo name for New Zealand.  
> Magpies are Australian birds that got introduced to New Zealand, so we get the ‘swoop attacks’ and they eat lambs, carrion, and native birds - a very accurate overview [in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HivhKv7wA-w).
> 
> Thank you! If you read my other Terminator work, this comes about a week after _Fate Throws a Dagger_ \- Sarah has her arm in a sling.


End file.
